SSRG Scotland28 October 2013

A Starting Point..... Prevention is always better than cure

It’s a ‘no-brainer’

So why don’t we do it?

How do we do more of it?

What do we know?

“....to keep the laddies oot the jail”

Have we over-complicated this?

Isn’t it time to stop re-discovering the obvious?

Prevention - A well rehearsed policy (and research) narrative.......e.g.Commission on the Future Delivery of Public

Services 2011 (Christie)The report of Scotland's Independent Budget

Review Panel, published on July 29, 2010 (Beveridge)

Scottish Parliament Finance Committee Report on Preventative Spending (2011)Not to mention volumes of evidence and analysis in ...health, social care, criminal justice, early years and much, much, more...

But it’s not new!...“We must recognise also that an effective NHS and a healthier nation will not be achieved simply by improving the treatment of ill health. Prevention is as important as cure. Our aim should not be simply to get better at treating more sick people in hospital but to get better at enabling more people to stay well and to stay out of hospital.”

Ministerial Foreword – ‘A Plan for Action a Plan for Health – the Scottish Health Plan’, 2000

How many brave new dawns?“The concordat between the Scottish Government and COSLA sets a new context for policy development. It provides a new focus on outcomes and a new opportunity to tackle the big issues facing Scotland. National and local government are determined to seize this opportunity and this framework, alongside Equally Well and Achieving our Potential, represents a new dawn in social policy.”Foreword to ‘The Early Years Framework’, 2008

Archimedes is long dead!

So why doesn’t it happen?“The reasons for the prevalence of reactive approaches to failure demand are complex, but include:

resources are frequently occupied dealing with immediate problems, to the exclusion of longer-term initiatives;

an understandable but unhelpful focus on short-term results, sometimes exacerbated by political demands; and

organisations having an unduly narrow focus on specific outputs or outcomes - meaning that beneficial, preventative investment they could make is not seen as being central to the mission of that organisation.”

(Christie) Commission on the Future Delivery of Public Services 2011

Joint working?......

“There is still a deal of territorialism between agencies, including the voluntary agencies, that is more corrosive and pernicious than that between the gangs in the east end of Glasgow.”

John Carnochan, Violence Reduction Unit

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Albert Einstein

So What Can we do?Work to win hearts and mindsCommunicate across boundariesDrive practical changeBe ‘Champions’Shine a light on what worksTranslate, distil and apply research

Which sources of research and evidence have proved most useful to you and why?

What opportunities do you have (or could you identify/create) to make the case for a preventative approach more effectively with colleagues and/or decision makers?

What are the barriers to more action and investment being directed towards a preventative approach within your organisation/service area? And what do you think could be done to change that?

A Call to Action......

Be InformedBe ImpatientBe Confident